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SW 2008 hardware question 1

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muddyfox

muddyfox

Computer
Oct 23, 2007
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Hello there!

It's me again. :)

After having numerous compatibility issues with my old hardware I've decided to spring for a new laptop that will be able to cope with SW 2008.

Right now I'm looking at a IBM Lenovo 61 line, a dual core machine with 2-4 gigs of ram and an external firewire disk.

What I'm unsure of is the graphics card. Searching through supported cards on SW site revealed nothing I could use so I thought to ask here, if not about supported cards then at least a card that someone can confirm that it works in 2008.

Here's the list I'm looking at:
-nVidia Go 7300
-nVidia Quadro NVS 140M
-ATI Radeon X1400
-Intel GMA X3100

Any suggestions?
Tnx!
 
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For what it's worth, I bought this Lenovo ThinkPad T61p 9-20-07 $1946 plus tax
They had a great sale going.
You might ask Lenovo sales about the graphics card as certified cards (although low end) were available at that time.

And the next question?? I never did load SW on this machine.
--------------------------------------------------------

Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 ( 2.4Ghz, 800Mhz, 4mbL2 )
Win XP Pro
15” Widescreen WSXGA +TFT ( mat finish screen )
Nvidia Quadro FX 570M ( entry level card )
2 Gb Ram, 677 Mhz
Trackpoint and touchpad
100 Gb Hard drive, 7200 rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Dual layer
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965agn & Bluetooth
9 cell lithium battery
Microsoft Office Basic 2007
Shipping was free
 
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NONE OF THESES ARE SUPPORTED

-nVidia Quadro NVS 140M
-ATI Radeon X1400
-Intel GMA X3100

If you get them you will have extreme issues that would have been fixed if you had spent the extra money on card that was certified and supported in GREEN

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
Click to expand...
faq731-376
 
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Here is the link to the beginning of the tale on purchasing my ThinkPad T61p.


Rob posted the 2nd part of the story.

I have but quite a few hours on the new machine and I like it.

If you are not adventerous I would stick with Windows XP for the OS. Get your self the biggest CPU you can. Buy after market memory modules to keep cost down.

With the latest BIOS flashed to the system this weekend and the approved video drivers for Vista the laptop is running well.

The FX570 graphics has approved drivers for Windows XP and SW2008. There are not approved drivers yet for Vista and SW2008. I do see a few graphics anomolies in SW2008. Pretty minor and I expect they will go away when Lenovo gets an approved video driver for SW2008 and Vista.

I am a geek though and the group guinea pig so minor issues with Vista are part of the learning curve for when we roll out Vista in the future. You may not want to go down that road.

I am happy with my system so far and would not hesitate to recomend the ThinkPad T61p for use with SW.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
SW2008 SP1.1, Windows Vista
IBM ThinkPad T61p, T7800, FX570M, 4 gigs of RAM
 
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Wow!

I really appreciate the quick response, guys!

@CorBlimey: T60 and Z61 are not available for purchase around here any more, and T61 that has the suggested nVIDIA Quadro FX 570M instead of typical nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M exceeds my budget by roughly 50%.

@KenMoz: SW lists your card as supported. What issues did you come upon that prevented you from running SW2008 on your T61p?

@Scott: I've had many cards work rather well eventhough not supported. I agree with you wholeheartedly and would gladly get a supported card if I were buying a desktop machine. But I'm getting a laptop and it drives the cost up to the point where other requirements trump my graphic card needs. Hence, I'm looking for a workaround, if available. :)

@Anna: I'm glad you got SW up and running. I'm not looking to run it on Vista, but I will if necessary. Do you think I could get by with 2gigs, with Vista itself being a memory hog? Like I said, T61p is quite a bit outside of my price range (I was considering a R61 line) but you guys got me thinking.

 
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I also got my T61p recently as a replacement for my old T43p. Running XP w/ 2005 currently without any problems at all and will be moving to 2007 next month. I don't expect any problems with that either. It's a very good system so far and all the little things Lenovo does make it IMO well worth the extra money. The specs are pretty much the same as KenMoz.

Kevin Carpenter
CAD Systems Administrator
Invacare Corp.
 
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I was running SW2007 just fine (albeit a bit slow) on a R50 machine. T61p should be able to eat it for breakfast. :)

I guess I'll just save up for a few more months and get a T61P.

 
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My Z61p runs SW 2008 just fine. I don't know how pricing is in the US, but an equally specced HP 8150W is around 1/2 to 2/3 of the price of a T61p! I love my Lenovo, but I would definetly go for the HP machine if I were to buy a 15.4" mobile workstation right now. I was impressed by the build quality of the HP 8x10W series machines I played with.

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
 
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If the brand new work station grade laptops are out of your price range then perhaps looking at some off lease or used workstation grade laptops would be a better option? Graphic cards are a very critical link the SolidWorks functionality.

Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
HP XW4300, 3.4g proc, 2.5g RAM, ATI Fire GL 3100
Dell M90, Core 2 Duo, 2g RAM, Nvidia Quadra FX2500M
Equus (custom), P4, 3.4g proc, 3g RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX3400
 
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@Stefan: I have some very bad experiences with the HP range of machines. This may just be my bad luck but it has turned me off HPs for quite a bit of time to come.

@sldwkmin: used laptop market is pretty much nonexistent around here. People ride their machines to the ground and anything available is pretty much obsolete. Looks like I'll just tough it out for a few more months and get a decent machine (t61p) on some sort of a payment plan.
 
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I've had bad luck with HPs consumer laptops (and support), but not with their business ones, they seem to be in a completely different league, could even be coming from a completely different factory and design team. Also business support is much better in my experience.

Mind you, this is as things are over here, in the Netherlands... Notebooks are the same, but support experiences can differ!

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
 
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By the way, I've noticed some marked improvements in the way HP seems to approach product quality now as opposed to five years ago. I have a Dell laptop (few months old) that I would trade any day for one of the newer HP laptops of similar feature set. Dell is unraveling, it seems--nothing like the times when their good reputation was built.



Jeff Mowry
What did you dream? It's all right--we told you what to dream.
--Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine
 
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